Why do pharmacists leave the profession? A mixed-method exploratory study

Abstract

Background: Recent New Zealand policy documents aim for pharmacists to be retained, and promote the provision of extended clinical pharmacy services. However, younger pharmacists have expressed dissatisfaction with the profession on informal social for a.
 Objectives: To explore the characteristics, and perspectives of pharmacy as a career, of recent Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm, four-year degree) graduates who have left, or are seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession in the near future and where they have gone, or plan to go.
 Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with a mixed-method explanatory sequential design. An anonymous online survey among those who completed their pharmacy undergraduate degree (BPharm or equivalent) in 2003 or later and who had left or who were seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession in the next five years, was open from 1st December 2018 to 1st February 2019. Recruitment occurred via University alumni databases, pharmacy professional organisations, pharmaceutical print media, social media and word-of-mouth. Ten semi-structured interviews were then conducted with a purposive sample of survey respondents. Descriptive statistics were generated from the quantitative data and qualitative data were analysed using manifest content analysis.
 Results: We received 327 analysable surveys of which 40.4% (n=132) were from those who had already left the New Zealand pharmacy sector at the time of the data collection and the rest (59.6% n=195) were those working within the sector, but seriously considering leaving the profession. Reasons most commonly reported for studying pharmacy were having an interest in health and wanting to work with people. The most common reasons for leaving, or wanting to leave, were dissatisfaction with the professional environment, including inadequate remuneration, and a perceived lack of career pathways or promotion opportunities. A wide range of career destinations were declared, with medicine being most frequently reported.
 Conclusions: Most of the reasons for leaving/considering leaving the profession reported relate to the values and features of the pharmacy profession such as the professional environment, remuneration and career pathways. These findings are consistent with other studies and may represent a barrier to achieving the aims of recent health policy documents.

Behind the Counter: Exploring Pharmacists’ Stressors and Lessons Learned During the Pandemic in Ontario, Canada

“…21 Our study found that the lack of recognition combined with the increased workload has introduced thoughts of leaving the profession, implying that pharmacists have been, to some degree, dissatisfied with the working conditions during the pandemic, which is a predictor of intention to leave the profession. 22 The pandemic intensified a long-existing drug shortage issue faced by Canada. Participants emphasized that the drug shortage led to extended time retrieving medication for patients, and if unsuccessful, they needed to offer alternative treatments.…”

“…21 Our study found that the lack of recognition combined with the increased workload has introduced thoughts of leaving the profession, implying that pharmacists have been, to some degree, dissatisfied with the working conditions during the pandemic, which is a predictor of intention to leave the profession. 22…”

Workplace bullying in pharmacy – a study on prevalence, impacts and barriers to reporting

“…Our Australian colleagues have mooted the idea that workplace bullying might be occurring in pharmacy (Chaar, 2015), but work does not extend beyond commentary. A recent paper reported a bullying culture as a reason for some younger pharmacists considering leaving the pharmacy profession in New Zealand (Aspden et al ., 2021) and this work builds on that. Given the gap in pharmacy practice literature, the objectives of this study are to estimate the prevalence of specific bullying behaviors, self-reported prevalence of experienced bullying/witnessed bullying, personal and work-related impacts, bullying reporting practices and the reasons for not reporting, in the New Zealand pharmacy sector, using an online survey-based dataset comprising both quantitative and qualitative information.…”

Premature attrition of clinical pharmacists: Call to attention, action, and potential solutions

“…There is a dearth of contemporary data specifically addressing this question in the United States. A recent survey in New Zealand, which has a robust clinical pharmacy model, demonstrating that pharmacists who left the profession or were considering leaving in the next 5 years cited dissatisfaction with professional environment, inadequate renumeration, and perceived lack of career pathways or promotion opportunities 10 . The purpose of this review is to summarize factors associated with premature attrition of clinical pharmacists, call attention to this trend in order to promote future research on this issue, and provide suggestions for improvements.…”